gingerjon

The funding of the last World Cup was an actual manifesto commitment from the party that then won the election.

It’s not quite at the “if they were playing in my garden, I’d draw the curtains” level but it’s close.

We disagree about it being the pinnacle. It's too user unfriendly - even for the time - for that. But you're right on the bowls feeling like they're in two separate grounds at times.

It's really not a great stadium. Slightly older ones have better functionality (Millennium for example) and it simply has no 'wow' factor when compared to most completed after it. That said, it's big, does the job and can have a good atmosphere. It is pretty unforgiving on half-baked events though - which is, being blunt, why the Challenge Cup Final comes across really badly in it.

The ref didn’t need to be let off the hook.

Helps to be neutral. Ref had basically zero impact on the result. Leigh just woke up too late.

Not enough clubs to align the remaining divisions but just so long as SL can get rid of its loop fixtures …

No, you just need a hint from a friendly scribbler that, y’know, there’s the possibility of some money from unnamed sources. Nobody needs to know anything else. Here, have some more NRL gossip. You like gossip, don’t you?

If all twelve SL owners left then there would still be rugby league. The sport is bigger than them as individuals and as a collective.

You’re happy with the sport being the plaything of your betters. Some of us just value ourselves and the game a little more than that. If Degsy was hit by a bus tomorrow there would still be rugby league. It’s up to those who value the game to ensure it’s in the best possible shape when that sad day arrives.

Is the sport bigger than the club owners? Very much so. And I would have thought someone who wangs on about the community game would feel the same.

It’s a terrible match but I wish someone could explain why the position they are in in the season after they qualified is an issue.

Been out this morning so just catching up. That is … not really an announcement, really?

It may have been needed. But, ultimately, we have contracted the leadership pool and have a bunch of people who can’t even read to the end of a basic Sport England paper without getting bored. They have also, noticeably, failed to change course on the most immediate issue facing Super League, that of Salford. Strong leaders would have taken decisive action. These guys are not strong.

Also, for whimsy, love this line in the Wigan Athletic wikipedia entry: After 34 failed election attempts, including one controversial but headline-making application in 1972 to join the Scottish League Second Division, Wigan Athletic was elected to the Football League in 1978.

https://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Wigan_Borough/Wigan_Borough.htm Interesting little details about rugby v football in the write up

Thankfully I am not a journalist. But if I were and I put out that statement I would have checked that I understood what it means when a winding up petition is received by the entity the petition names. Turns out, all my thinking that journalists would learn the details of what they were 'reporting' on was misguided. Carter is asked what it means and says he doesn't know. It's one google click away: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/101087. Probably still need some clarification but this really should be entry level stuff for coverage.

I have some sympathy for the clubs who got this season on at short notice but they have been clumsy and have acted since as if they want to be a perpetual clique. The issue with the refs appears to have been fault entirely on their (the clubs’) side. I like what I’ve heard from the incoming group. I don’t think they’re perfect but they seem realistic enough and are basing a lot on numbers that seem credible. Beyond that, I really couldn’t say. I vaguely follow London Lions scores but it’s not drawn me in. I know far far more about the WNBA and NCAA (men’s and women’s) which are properly fun completions. The NBA itself leaves me a bit cold - I tend to enjoy what European basketball I see.

Although, conversely, we are told that not all countries want to win because they either can’t afford or don’t have the venues to host.

We did have some multi sport clubs in the UK, traditionally cricket plus one other (either rugby or soccer), but, over time, these have completely separated even where there are still shared facilities. The model throws up some oddities. Thanks to my long standing support of Werder Bremen, I get a lot of links on the YouTube algorithm to the German table tennis league in which they enter a team.

Don’t worry. The same owners who voted for something they didn’t read, who failed to comprehend how to set up a legally valid sporting NGB, and who like to get drunk and go on the socials to tell people they can throw a kettle over a pub, will have sorted it all out. You don’t need to know how. You’re just the mark they want to milk.

They seem to be relying on the judges scoring Israel so low that the public vote - which, to repeat, Israel has openly said it is manipulating - cannot give Israel a win. I suspect they are scared to do more because the BBC, and potentially others, will withdraw funding if they do. The BBC, as far as I can tell, was pretty much alone in pitching the Israeli participation as a triumph against the odds in the manner of Ukraine's. It really wouldn't take much, given the anti European nature of the press, for an anti Israel move to wind up being seen as a European surrender to jihadists by the press and for the supine BBC to then, oh so reluctantly, give in to government pressure with regards to the EBU. We do get regular 'stop giving money to the EBU' stories anyway.

The answer is “no” then. Understood.

You’d think they’d at least try and pretend they’re different people, wouldn’t you?

Has the situation improved in the months that the new “board” have had to take control and correct the errors?